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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

D4n said:
Thorpe Park currently not allowing pass holder pre-book for any Fright Nights dates (days either side of Fright Nights are still available).

This strikes me as practice that is in extremely poor taste, seeing if they can fill the park with on the day guests before offering any tickets to pass holders during their busiest time of year. Access to Fright Nights is also one of the advertised perks of the premium annual pass over the standard pass so I'd even argue that they are operating in a grey area in terms of false advertising (although they will no doubt release an extremely small quantity of annual pass tickets at some stage to counter this).
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They were available to buy in July so must be a recent change.
It’s also sadly something Merlin are doing at other parks, Towers aren’t allowing passholders to prebook for Fireworks yet if you pay for a day ticket you can book.
 
I'm pretty sure Towers have always sold regular 1-day tickets for fireworks well in advance of the pass holder reservation system going live so this might not be entirely new. I guess it's possibly a little different this year as normally you wouldn't have to reserve on regular days so there isn't normally a system for pass holders to book/reserve at all

It's possible that they made the current pass holder reservation system live before they figured out what the event days were going to be. With FN dates now confirmed they presumably don't want to let the basic tier pass holders make a £1 reservation for a date their pass isn't valid, so they might have removed availability for pass holders entirely while they sort it out. There's been a lot of discussion in the AT 2020 thread about ticket allocations on regular days and how regular tickets & AP holders don't come out of the same pot, so hopefully it's similar here and they're not just trying to sell out the park to the more lucrative day tickets holders first.
 
https://support.thorpepark.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001162891-What-Restaurants-do-you-have-

Interestingly a new pass coming to Thorpe Park called “Thorpe Park Infinity”
Maybe that’s their unlimited Fastrack pass like legoland?

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imanautie said:
I had a quick check and I can't see any sign of it on the online side of me-tpr yet, I wonder if it was planned to launch this year but didn't for spikey ball with that bit of info having already been written.
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Yep, it has been around on a couple of pages and terms and conditions since the start of the season. Everything points towards it being their deluxe tier ticket, likely with some form of fastrack entitlement - including fastrack security.
 
Thorpe have offered an unlimited fastrack package previously I’m sure, so I guess this could be a new pass option, but with Covid it’s been cancelled.
 
I booked my Sun Savers freebie ticket for a random date in October which now turns out to be the first day of Fright Nights. A mix of Sun voucher holders and MAP holders must be Merlin's worst nightmare.
 
RicketyCricket said:
I booked my Sun Savers freebie ticket for a random date in October which now turns out to be the first day of Fright Nights. A mix of Sun voucher holders and MAP holders must be Merlin's worst nightmare.
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To be fair they probably prefer Sun ticket holders, as they’ve got the tickets free )or very cheap) I imagine they are likely to spend well on park, if it’s cost you nothing you’ll probably buy fastrack, a nice meal and some merch.

Annual pass holders on the other hand who visit regularly won’t be buying fastrack, nice meals or loads of merch. Certainly not on all visits anyway.
 
imanautie said:
In that case what do we think itl cost and what will it include?
Their previous fastrack pass cost £400 and was ride only not including mazes (and obviously not entry) and was valid from purchase till 31/12
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I seem to recall some of their previous pricing has been fairly straight forward in terms of just adding two already priced elements together. So I'd guess premium pass (£85) plus fastrack pass (£400), maybe adjust slightly to get £499. If they add say Freestyle entitlement, perhaps up to £550.

The next question is if they actually sell any. I believe the first year they ran the fastrack pass (from August to October for £400), it didn't sell at all. In the second year (March-Nov) it sold, but seemingly only a handful. It's an intriguing product, but seemingly anyone who would want one would likely have a MAP, and this doesn't fit so well with MAP. I wonder if Merlin will put the breaks on these different pass types, realising competition between your own companies and brands, isn't exactly competition.
 
The thing is I seem to remember that fastrack pass being very hidden and just somewhere in the Thorpe website, your average Joe is never going to buy it, but pass holders might, but I bet the majority of pass holders didn’t even know it was a thing.
Maybe now the VIP pass has gone, there would be more of a uptake from previous VIP pass holders.
 
djtruefitt said:
The thing is I seem to remember that fastrack pass being very hidden and just somewhere in the Thorpe website, your average Joe is never going to buy it, but pass holders might, but I bet the majority of pass holders didn’t even know it was a thing.
Maybe now the VIP pass has gone, there would be more of a uptake from previous VIP pass holders.
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You would think that but last year during FRIGHT NIGHTS I was apparently the first (and only in some cases) guest many staff had seen with one.
It went all over the VIP groups even before the cancellation of the map VIP pass was announced.
 
imanautie said:
You would think that but last year during FRIGHT NIGHTS I was apparently the first (and only in some cases) guest many staff had seen with one.
It went all over the VIP groups even before the cancellation of the map VIP pass was announced.
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Yep that was a common issue. I had various comments of 'what's that', 'will it scan', and 'oooh it scanned!', even right up to my last visits in September. There was some surprise when it showed the passholder photo on their scanner too.

The staff area in Ghost Train had a board of samples for supposedly all fastrack, ride access and priority passes. But it didn't have the fastrack season pass. So I'd assume most staff had never even had the slightest bit of training that it existed.
 
To be fair I’ve used the free ride breakdown fastrack at Thorpe before And on multiple visits the staff either didn’t know what they were for and let me keep it or sometimes never even asked to see the fastrack.
 
djtruefitt said:
To be fair I’ve used the free ride breakdown fastrack at Thorpe before And on multiple visits the staff either didn’t know what they were for and let me keep it or sometimes never even asked to see the fastrack.
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They seem to be using the honor system, I've had 2 so far.this season (both SAW)
Host: have you used this yet? Me: no host: here you go (hands pass back and steps clear)...
 
Didn’t know they had them this season. Towers don’t have ride passes at all, I’ve been evacuated out of a coupe of queues due to breakdowns when you would normally get a ride pass, but they said they haven’t got them this year due to not having Fastrack for sale.
 
Apparently it's national fastrack day today. Thorpe have also started selling them now, using a 'roving sales team'.

Just want to skip the queue once? During your visit you can purchase a One Shot Fastrack from £10 - available to buy from our roaming fastrack sales team.

In the morning our roaming fastrack sales team can be found on park as you exit the dome near Island Help and Information. The afternoon the team can be found outside our major rollercoasters. Feel ask a member of staff if you are trying to locate the roaming fastrack sales team.

Please note that our fastrack is being sold on an extremely limited basis as part of our ongoing safety enhancements.
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